In the News (Thu 22 Feb 18)

Torres' struggle was to establish a discourse that would introduce external interference in the conception of justice in Colombia.

Torres became aware that somehow the insemination of the earth with the dynamic of dominance, greed, and control was always there.

Although Torres died in combat in 1966, his option must be understood not as one of simply bearing arms, but as an intense process focused on wriggling power from the vicious and unbending ruling oligarchy to create a social structure of shared governance, and permanence of dignity with practicable resource distribution.

Camilo was a catalyst of yearnings that lie in a repressed form in the majority of the people.

Camilo was living in the seminary in Bogota on April 9th and during the most acute period of the violence.

Camilo, however, does not join in this euphoria of "peace." His studies in sociology have prepared him to progressively uncover the roots of the violence and to invite Colombian society to confront them with sincerity and decision.

Torres studied in Europe and was impressed by the priest-worker movement in France and the ideal of sharing the destiny of the working class.

Torres, centered on land and urban reform, on the nationalization of banks, hospitals, insurance companies, public transport, radio and television and all natural resources, and on liberation from the ideology of consumerism.

Torres was killed in the line of battle in the municipality of San Vincente, southern department of Santander.

CamiloTorres formed the United Front in January 1965, at the same time as the ELN, which had been formed in July 1964, came to public attention in the mountains of Santander.

Camilo's ideas were constantly developing, and he began to stress the need for unity between Marxists and Christians to achieve the common objective of making revolution so as to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty and give clothes to the naked.

Camilo used to say, "Why should we debate amongst ourselves whether the soul is mortal or immortal, when we both know that hunger is mortal?" He called on Christians to live up to the moral and ethical demands of their faith, contending, "Revolution is not only permitted for Christians, but obligatory".

CamiloTorres was born in 1929 into the upper crust of Colombian society.

Torres returned to Colombia where he became involved in trying to organize young people to become involved with the poor, trying to get the church to recognize its social obligations to the poor, and trying to get the government to begin programs that would really help the poor.

As a result, Torres would become convinced that the only hope for Colombia was in revolution, and that he must make a choice between acting on his love for the people or continuing to support the status quo by remaining a priest.

Father CamiloTorres Restrepo (born in Bogotá, Colombia 3 February 1929 – Santander, 15 February 1966) was a Colombian Roman Catholic priest, a predecessor of the Liberation Theology and a member of the National Liberation Army guerrilla group.

Torres was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1954, but continued to study for some years at the Pontifical Roman Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain) in Belgium.

After his death, CamiloTorres was later made an official martyr of the ELN.

Over half-a-century later, on February 15, 1966, CamiloTorres, one of the first to join Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), was killed during a blotched guerilla ambush in the mountains of his native country.

Torres was close friends with Gustavo Gutiérrez—the Peruvian priest whose enormously influential book, La teología de la liberación, gave rise to the theory and practice of liberation theology in our hemisphere.

Unlike CamiloTorres, Héctor Gallego was of humble origins—an agriculturalist family from rural Antioquia.

Over half-a-century later, on February 15, 1966, CamiloTorres, one of the first to join Colombia’s Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), was killed during a blotched guerilla ambush in the mountains of his native country.

Torres also served as a high-ranking member of several organizations that promoted land reform to benefit the rural poor.

Torres was close friends with Gustavo Gutiérrez --- the Peruvian priest whose enormously influential book, La teología de la liberación, gave rise to the theory and practice of liberation theology in our hemisphere.

As university chaplain, Father Torres' progressive ideas clashed with conservative superiors, and in 1962 church officials ordered him to cease both his academic and chaplain work at the university.

Father Torres complied, but continued to write papers on the nation's social problems, speak at conferences and oppose the government's anti-guerrilla military campaigns.

On the anniversary of Father Torres' death, the newspaper El Catolicismo editorialized that "there are anniversaries which are not to be celebrated, and this is the case for the death of Father CamiloTorres.

The presence of Camilo, and his contribution to the development of the ELN popular revolutionary movement, despite his tragically early death, began a process of consciousness which inspires Christians and Clergy to collaborate in the transformation of the continent's revolutionary history, and gaining their commitment to the people's struggle.

Torres' life, work, and death, reflects on the significance to the ongoing liberation struggle of the people of all of Latin America.

One of those whose books were inspected suspiciously was CamiloTorres Tenorio, then a professor of law in the Colegio del Rosario, and later one of the principal leaders of independence...

and friend of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, active in Bolivia prior to his execution in 1967, or the Columbian priest, CamiloTorres, who forsook the priesthood to join with revolutionary guerrillas and was killed in an ambush in 1966, became symbols of...

Torres, a Roman Catholic priest, grew up in an aristocratic and bourgeois family in Colombia.

amazon.com /phrase/Camilo-Torres (663 words)

LATIN AMERICA: First names(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-15)

Camilo Cienfuegos was one of the most important leaders of the Cuban revolution.He was with the Castro brothers and Guevara in the attackon Moncada and remained with them until his death.

When I was a child it was said that Camilo and el Che were the best friends and, after Guevara's death, they formed a sort of mythologic couple (like Castor and Pollux).

Camilo was the only one of the most important leaders who was not a communist.

Just before Labossiere concluded the discussion, CamiloTorres passed around a hat and asked that students give whatever change they had to Labossiere to be donated to the Haitian Action Network.

Latin American Empowerment is not an official club or organization recognized by the university, it is a group of students who meet once a week to discuss social and political issues and exchange information in keeping with their “each one, teach one” philosophy.

Torres said over the course of the semester, with each meeting and subsequent discussion, he has watched people’s intellect grow.